


Placebo

by WatTheCur



Category: The Lost Boys (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bathing/Washing, Chronic Pain, Established Relationship, Flirting, Fluff, M/M, Tenderness, Tribe-verse, Vampires, sensory issues, vampire biology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:47:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28739745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WatTheCur/pseuds/WatTheCur
Summary: Bathing has always felt like a chore for Alan.
Relationships: Sam Emerson/Alan Frog
Kudos: 9





	Placebo

Alan had never enjoyed bathing. At least, he had never been able to draw a bath he could enjoy. The feeling of wet hair and dripping skin had never been pleasant, but he could endure it with the water at a comfortable temperature. Even now, at thirty-eight he thought he could more easily fold his bathwater than get it to a comfortable temperature. He had never been able to get it right. If ever he had taken a bath that had not near suffocated him, or sent him away shivering for hours afterwards, he could not recall it. This was the reason he so seldom took them. His whole life, since the early days of screaming and thrashing beneath a pouring jug, he had held a reluctance to bathe. He would wait until the greasy film of dry sweat and dirt began to itch like a new skin, before stripping it away. Then, he would usually utilise a basin and dish rag, or better, half a packet of baby wipes, scrubbing and drying inch by inch. Much easier to conduct and control than stewing in a tub. As both he and Edgar had been similar in their bathing habits (and Issac and Eleanore would never use water where patchouli oil would do), he would rarely notice his own smell. Outsiders, young patrons of their shop usually, did notice. Most of them had told him so. 

_“Ugh, take a shower, Goblin!”_

_“You fucking reek, gross!”_

Alan wondered, idly, if he smelled any worse these days. He thought back to that summer, in the dark bowels of those caves. That stink so hot and pungent it had felt like a pair of talons up his nose. Funny, he had not noticed any such odour coming from Sam, and he could not recall Sam disappearing into the bathroom to fill the tub since he had settled in. Never heard the shower spray, either. There were bottles of cologne in their room, lined up atop the chest of drawers where there had been nothing but dust before Sam’s arrival. Purple, black and golden bottles with names like “Noir” and “Electric” embossed into their sleek fronts. He knew Sam dabbed himself with perfume before he slipped out, because when he returned, engorged and warm, Alan could just make out the alcoholic tang beneath that horribly inviting crust of blood. 

Alan shuddered, swallowing the saliva that pooled at the memory. He twisted off the water, not caring to dip his fingers in again to test it, and hurt his pruned skin on the tap. He had taken more baths since his half turn, than he ever had in his mortal life. Not because he was conscious of smelling bad, but because of the sickness. A half turn came with ailments from which (as Sam frequently reminded him) a full turn would free him. As a human he had frequently been ill, weak, unable to rise from his bed. Now, he suffered such familiarities and infinitely more. Frantic desperation had taught him that a hot bath could dull the pain and reign in the destabilising nausea that came with a vampire’s hunger, as well as giving the illusion of fullness for at least an hour. He was no biologist, but he supposed he had his remaining humanity to thank for that. Would hot water do as much for a corpse?

Settling down after slowly immersing himself never seemed to get easier, or quicker. He never lay there with every sinew solid as a stone relief and his belly caving for less than twenty minutes, he guessed. Not that he was ever inclined to count the minutes. Counting, equations, numbers in general, had never done much to soothe him. He just felt himself beginning to numb to the heat, his stomach slowly swelling into it, when the click of the door startled him back into rigour mortis. It opened to reveal Sam, scratching his scalp on the doorframe, like a cat. The faint scent of fresh blood hit just before Alan glimpsed the blotchy, pink stains around his mouth and chest. He had scrubbed himself as clean as he could before coming to find him, Alan realised, though saliva filled his mouth once more. He was bare from the waist up. Hopefully, his jacket was wiped clean and his shirt soaking in the kitchen sink, removing any insidious temptations from Alan’s reach.  
“How are ya, Sweetheart?” 

Alan’s eyes snapped back up to Sam’s. He saw they were blue, but bright from the feed, and tenderly studying him. He felt he should not be so bashful in front of Sam at this stage, and guilt nipped him as he drew his thighs up to his front. 

“Business as usual.” Came his reply, as he rested his chin on his damp knees. Sam hummed through his blunted teeth, his eyes drifting over what little of Alan he could see. 

“You want me to get ya a glass?” He asked, then frowned, quizzically. “You won’t throw up in there, if you eat, will ya?”  
Hungry though he was, all the more for a bloodstained Sam in the doorway, Alan’s cold guts clenched at the possibility. Sam must have seen him wincing. “You sure, bud?” Alan nodded, and Sam mirrored him, blinking slowly and lazily in his own, full bellied satisfaction (That was not quite true, Alan thought. Vampires do not digest blood, they circulate it). Silence buzzed between them for a moment, then; “Mind if I slide in next to ya?” 

Alan considered, his arms tightened around his folded legs. Sam was usually quite insatiable after a feed. The request would have excited Alan, were he not trying to remedy himself. 

“Sure. But, I don’t feel like I can _do it_ , tonight.” Sam snorted at his coy phrasing, though there was no mockery in his grin. Alan had long ago begun to use deliberately prudish language, when he realised Sam found it cute. 

“Didn’t think so, Treacle.” Sam crossed to the tub, picking at the zipper of his PCV pants. They creaked as he leaned down to peck Alan on the forehead. “Just been a while since I took a bath. Might as well take this one with you, huh?” 

He braced each foot on the edge of the tub, unzipping his boots, then he seated himself to peel off the constricting pants. Alan tapped, tunelessly on his shins as he watched Sam undress. How things had changed. He remembered when Sam had been a little wisp of a thing. When he had felt dense and hefty beside him. Even when Sam shot up almost a head taller than him, at seventeen, he had still been willowy, with very little definition from his fondness for dancing. When Sam stepped back into his life almost a year ago, as breezily as though through his own front door, Alan found him transformed in more ways than one. A healthy appetite near the close of his mortal life had given him a generous form. Broad and sturdy, yet soft. He seemed more whole, now. The gangly, doll-like assemble of his youth now properly fitted and smoothed out with age. Alan found himself feeling rather frail and shapeless by comparison. On the occasion that Sam forwent his spot on the ceiling for a share of Alan’s insubstantial bed, Alan felt him at his back and was sure this is how a hermit crab must feel, enveloped in the safety of it’s shell. 

He was jolted from his meditation on Sam’s now naked body, by a feline shift in his eyes. 

“You sure you’re not up to _it_ , bud?” Sam swatted Alan, lightly on the knee before he could manage an answer. “Spin.” 

Awkwardly, like a swollen cork in an old bottle, Alan shifted himself around in the narrow tub. A low groan escaped him as his head and stomach protested the action. Sam stepped in and settled down behind him with minimal sloshing. Alan steeled himself to scoot back towards him, but was stopped by a still dry hand on his shoulder. “One sec.” He heard the splashing and the slick sounds of Sam scrubbing away the last traces of blood from his skin. Gratitude ached in Alan’s chest. On nights when Sam returned from feeding, Alan felt like a starving prisoner with a heaving kitchen, bubbling and sizzling away just outside his cell. Sam reached for him again, careful in touching him with wet hands. He coaxed Alan backwards, easing him down into his chest. His thumbs kneaded him, comfortingly whenever he paused to gulp, or shiver. He purred, softly into Alan’s ear, once he finally had him cuddled against him. Sam was still warm with his recent meal coursing through him, so he did not chill Alan as he held him. 

“We got any soap?” He asked, after a time of comfortable silence. “I could give you a massage, if you want?” 

Alan thought of the encrusted half-bottle of body wash, collecting dust at the foot of the bath. 

“I think I’m good.” He nosed at Sam’s temple, restraining a purr rising in his own throat. “Unless you want to get cleaned up?” 

“Nah.” Sam chuckled. “Don’t need to.” 

“ ‘Was thinkin’,” Alan could feel himself beginning to relax again, in the water, against Sam. “I don’t remember th’ last time you took a bath.” His pillow huffed into his hair.

“Why, do I smell?” 

“No, I just…don’t remember.” 

“Hm, ‘cause I haven’t taken one since I got here.”

“No?”

“Uh uh, don’t need to, anymore.” Sam pressed a gentle hand on Alan’s thigh. “Straighten out, it’s not helpin’ ya being all curled up.” Alan submitted to his pressing hand, like a ball jointed doll, his previous shyness melting with his pain. 

“Why don’t you have to take a bath?” He asked “You not get dirty, anymore?”

“I don’t sweat!” Sam said, with the pride of a young child announcing he could sleep without a night light. “I mean, I get dirt on me, sure. But I don’t sweat anymore. Don’t you feel it, when ya touch me?” 

He lifted a hand, hot from the water to Alan’s jaw. He used one, wet knuckle to nudge his face close to his own, guiding his lips to his cheek. Alan obligingly brushed his lips over Sam’s skin. He had felt it before, beneath his hands, his body. Only now, against the sensitivity of his chewed lips did he feel the dryness of it. Not a flaky dryness, but the sort of smooth, supple dryness that comes from the bite of a winter day. Vampires don’t sweat, huh? The stink of those caves flittered across Alan’s mind again, and questioned if the smell really was coming from those boys. Perhaps, he thought, they had left one of their victims, forgotten and rotting in some corner. He tutted against Sam’s cheek.

“ ‘M sorry. I must feel like some sort of eel to you, now.” 

Sam had to turn away to splutter out a laugh. 

“Honestly-,” He managed, once he had recovered, “honestly, I like it. Feels close to home, ya know?” He kissed Alan on his stubbled cheek. “You’re a nostalgia trip, buddy.” 

“You make me sound like some old toy.” Alan sniffed.

“Well, I mean, if you’d rather be compared to a fish-?”

“Alright, okay.” 

They did not speak a great deal after that, laying together in a bath that was now only warm. Soon, Alan could sense the incoming dawn. Sam’s purring had become constant and rhythmic, and Alan was finding it more and more difficult to keep his own down. Through a hair thin gap between the window and the makeshift covering, where the cardboard had begun to curl slightly with the damp, he could make out a sliver of hazy blue. Gently, he dug an elbow into Sam’s plump flank. 

“We better get out.” 

Sam tried to shake his drowsiness away, long enough for him to dry off and head to bed. “You feeling better, Sweetheart?”

“Yep.” 

It was not entirely the truth. The droning pain in Alan’s head and limbs was somewhat muted, but ever present, and hunger still gnawed at him from every side. Yet, Alan was content for his hot bath. He thought, as he and Sam replaced the faded towel on the rail and headed to the bedroom through the draughty corridor, that perhaps he might be able enjoy his baths from now on.


End file.
